


A Touch of Novelty

by Wasuremono



Category: Fallen London | Echo Bazaar
Genre: Anal Sex, Body Horror, Light Masochism, Mild Gore, Multi, Oral Sex, POV Second Person, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, Recreational Drug Use, Threesome - F/M/M, Undead, Vaginal Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-25
Updated: 2017-12-25
Packaged: 2019-02-20 03:39:20
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,499
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13138293
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wasuremono/pseuds/Wasuremono
Summary: A bored libertine in exile in the Tomb-Colonies meets an old friend and a new friend, and together they share an eventful honey-dream.





	A Touch of Novelty

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Largishcat](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Largishcat/gifts).



> CONTENT WARNING: This story contains enthusiastic consensual sex between three adult partners, two of whom are semi-undead beings. While the sexual content of the story is largely standard sex with light violence/masochism elements, themes and sensory descriptions include references to death and injury, as well as bodily decay/mummification and general body-horror themes. (If you're familiar with Fallen London: think of the tomb-colonist content we have, just more sexually explicit, and actually on the lighter end of the decay scale. No legs falling off at dances or eyes going into people's wine glasses!) Please keep this and the story tags in mind before choosing to read this story.
> 
> That said: what's Yuletide without a little horror porn, right? Happy Yuletide, Largishcat, and I hope you enjoy this!

On your twelfth night in the Tomb-Colonies, after nearly a fortnight of tedious exile, you at last have the pleasure of dining with an old acquaintance. You'd expected more, belonging as you do to a social circle infamous for spending seasons in the Colonies after some delightful new disgrace, but the salons and supper clubs catering to the living and near-living are sparsely populated; poor timing, you suppose. You dine alone until the twelfth night, when, at last, you catch a glimpse across the room of a face you recognize -- the Ill-Starred Duelist. The face is bandaged, of course, but even bandages can become familiar.

The Ill-Starred Duelist has never been your most intimate friend, in any sense of the word "intimate," but in London you enjoyed a pleasant if sporadic friendship. She has assisted you in several rough tasks during her seasons in London, which have been less and less common as the injuries of her sport send her to the Tomb-Colonies for "recuperation"; privately, you suspect that she is arranging for permanent lodgings, to be taken soon. Being low-ranked in the Black Ribbon Society has not treated her kindly. Nonetheless, she is excellent company, and when she steps inside your restaurant of the night with another tomb-colonist by her side, you rise to greet her. Her face contorts under her bandages in what you have come to recognize as a smile, and her single visible eye is bright. "Oh, it's you!" she calls out as she crosses the room to meet you, her companion following behind. "Let me make introductions."

The Jovial Veteran of her acquaintance is a true tomb-colonist, but the fresh linen of his bandages suggests a certain lingering attention to appearance, and his clothing is close enough to current fashion that he might get by in London. (Do styles migrate here from London? Are there tailors here who recreate them? The austere crowd you've met so far has suggested that tomb-colonists have little interest in clothes in good repair, let alone novel styles. It would be very pleasant to be wrong.) When he sees you, his face crinkles ambiguously. "Goodness, you look familiar. Are you related to Mr H----?"

You've never heard of Mr H---- in your life, and you say as much, but you can't help a smile at the revelation that, even here, your face is so easily mistaken for that of old friends. Your face, handsome but struck from a very common mould, has been a surprisingly powerful tool since your descent to London. On your second night in Veilgarden, a woman mistook you for a common debauchery companion, and you felt no need to disabuse her when she offered you a trip to a honey-den "to repay that old debt"; so began your infinitely enjoyable, occasionally profitable acquaintance with prisoner's honey. A surprising number of similarly enjoyable acquaintances have started this way, and by now you almost consider it a skill, or a sort of good omen. May this new acquaintance be as productive as the others that have started this way.

The pair takes a seat at your table, and the Jovial Veteran orders a bottle of something curiously-named and expensive. (You're just beginning to appreciate how seriously tomb-colonists of the drinking class take their alcohol, and how open their pocketbooks are for satisfying that desire. It is a lovely and unexpected element of this place.) As you dine on bland food and excellent wine, the conversation flows lightly; you satisfy the Duelist's curiosity as to the goings-on of your mutual acquaintances, while she satisfies yours about certain tomb-colonists gestures and idioms, all while the Veteran sips his glass and interjects with light jokes and asides. When the plates are picked over and the glasses empty, he clears his throat raspily.

"My dear boy," the Veteran begins. "Our mutual friend has told me that you might have a supply of a certain comestible from London. Are you perhaps inclined to share it?"

He means your honey, of course. You never travel without it, not even to the market; life in London so often requires a retreat into the honey-den and into dreams. Several sturdy jars are packed away in your luggage, and your familiar traveling vial rests in your breast pocket. You hadn't considered selling it, although a nest egg for your return is welcome... but, beneath the table, you feel the Veteran's hand on your thigh, and then another hand -- the firm touch of the Duelist -- on your knee. It seems this may be more than a transaction, then.

Your time in the Tomb-Colonies is improving by the minute.

"But of course," you reply. "Is there an appropriate parlour here for such things?"

"I know of one." The Veteran squeezes your thigh gently, then rises to his feet. "May I lead on?"

"Please do," you say, already anticipating the dreams to come.

* * *

The Veteran leads you and the duelist to a careworn fourth-floor salon, and you offer spoons of honey before you lie back on a faded velvet couch. When you emerge into the honey-dream, you are standing on a flat rooftop, stained blue-white stone at your feet. Vast towers sprout around you made of the same stone, crawling with blood-red ivy; the sky is pale green, and a glowing mote in at the distant horizon might be the sun. The light it casts is diffuse and odd-colored, but a honey-dream with light is still a wondrous indulgence.

The sound of raspy throat-clearing behind you breaks your focus, and you turn back to find the Veteran and the Duelist standing at the entrance to a white silken tent mounted on the rooftop. They're embracing, and you begin to formulate excuses for intrusion as you approach, hoping there is no need for them. There is no need. The Duelist takes your hand and leads you inside, where the stone is covered in pillows of silk and brocade, each bone-white and accented in bloody red. The Duelist looks to you with a look you'd been waiting for for most of your acquaintance, a look of earnest lust. She pulls you in for a kiss, and you almost stumble over a pillow -- or would, if she did not hold you in a tight embrace. Behind you, the Veteran steps forward to rests a hand on the waist of your trousers.

This is a coordinated effort, you realize -- a coordinated _offensive,_ perhaps, organized by a pair of canny soldiers hungry for the touch and taste of a living man. The very thought gives you a tingling rush of blood to your head and extremities. There are many exotic pleasures of the Neath, but one of your favorites is how deliciously forthright, and how forceful, Neathy lovers can be. None of your surface dalliances dared engage in the acts that come casually to Londoners. At last!

You pivot between your newfound paramours and press your mouth to the Veteran's pale, unbandaged lips. His mouth is cool but not dry, even though a faint taste of linen lingers; beyond that, the feeling is nearly human, with only an empty tooth-socket or degraded patch of gum to betray his nature. If he is nearly human here... what about elsewhere? The Duelist has released you, and you decide to indulge your curiosity, kneeling down to unfasten the Veteran's trousers. His bandages stop at mid-thigh, revealing an expanse of darkly mottled skin and a well-proportioned set of tackle. The Veteran is well-preserved, far beyond the sense of "well-preserved" applied to the merely old. His cock must have been a wonder in its time; even now, with the pale skin gone waxy and the veins dark reddish-brown, many in London would envy its size and form. You have always considered such envy a waste of time -- why covet when one can experience? You lean in to lick at the tip, then the head, and then you engulf him entirely. 

The taste is fascinating. It is not _good,_ exactly -- it reminds you of the scent of winter clothes put up for a long, muggy summer; the scent of moldering textile and a hint of soap, mixed with a lingering vestigial note of musk -- but it is distinctive and, as you continue your ministrations, not really unpleasant. You work more and more of his length into your mouth, eager to know the shaft down to its base, and he groans and rests a hand on your head. Gradually, you increase suction, and the dark blood of his cock begins a slow pulse. You run your tongue along his underside, then over the head, in an increasingly urgent loop. He groans again, tenses -- a profound pulse of his cock, with a twitch -- and you wait to have another mystery answered. 

"Don't you go ignoring me," calls the Duelist, and pulls you away from the Veteran before you can experience his climax. She kisses you fiercely, pulling you down onto the pillows, and her brittle hair falls over her eyes as she straddles you. You've never been one to turn down a lady who knows what she wants, and you unbutton her jacket clumsily as she begins to grind against your thigh. Her bandaged chest is revealed, well-shaped and still stained with nigh-fresh blood; when you reach for her breasts, your hand brushes against a slightly concave patch below her sternum, which yields to your touch. A wound? A death-wound, you figure -- even with the resistance of her linen bandages, your fingers press deep -- and she makes a guttural yelp of pleasure.

"Yes. Yes. Know me."

She presses you down, moving away from hungry bites to your neck only to relieve you of your remaining clothes, and you let your hands roam over her body as you undress her. There is a unique allure to the texture of the bandages, of the different regions of fresh rough linen and patches worn smooth, especially with the firm strength of flesh underneath. (You are reminded of a disappointing early experience with a devil, whose skin had an intriguing papery texture, but with an odd hollowness beneath. You prefer substance.) Now and then, you find the softer flesh of a wound -- a bruise or burn whose tenderness is only clear from the Duelist's sharp inhalation at your touch, or a gash or gouge that yields to your attention. All too aware of her strength on top of you, you keep your ministrations gentle, and she grinds and writhes and yelps. By the time her hand finds your cock, you're fully hard, and you reach down to find a slick heat between her legs. This simplifies things considerably. As game as you would have been regardless, you weren't sure whether you should ask about an agent to ease passage. She's more than ready for you, though, and you're more than ready for her.

Just as you move to shift her from your thigh to your cock, the Veteran clears his throat. You look up and you nearly laugh; he could be a butler, waiting with unobtrusive posture, save for his open trousers and his staff at full attention. "My dears," he says, "flip over, will you?" 

"Oh, very well," replies the Duelist, as she flops onto the pillows and allows you to climb on top of her. "We'll have it your way."

You don't bother to wait. You slide inside her, letting her take you to your hilt, and lean in to caress her linen-covered breasts and the sweet soft spot of her death-wound. On your third thrust, you feel the Veteran's hand on your hip. A hand slips between your buttocks, spreading something cool and slick and tingling on your bronze eye. He eases a skilled finger inside you, massaging the ring until the muscle begins to relax, and you nearly lose your rhythm as the sensation wracks you. The Duelist pulls you back down and grasps your hips to pull you back inside her. You thrust, even as the excruciating pleasure of the Veteran's cock pressing against you and finding admittance begins to hit you in the base of the spine.

It's getting harder to maintain a train of thought, but you find yourself wondering if this is a setup. Did the Duelist hear that this position, pinned delectably between Venus and Mars, was a particular favorite of yours? Did she make the Veteran's acquaintance to provide it? Or is this really just a coincidence --

The Veteran hilts himself in you. Thought ceases. You thrust again, and your hand presses against the Duelist's chest wound, which yields further under your touch than ever before. There is a warmth, a spreading brilliant red, and she groans ecstatically.

You don't dare any more pressure, though, and you force yourself back upright, bracing yourself with your arms as you find a rhythm to your thrusts. The Veteran follows your lead, and soon there is a steady flow of pleasure from within and without, building steadily in intensity. You've never had cause to be ashamed of your stamina before, but with this assault of novelty -- with the smell of blood and musk and soap, of fabric and rot and myrrh, and the touch of the Duelist's needy warmth and the Veteran's steady cold -- you're not sure how long you can last. When at last the sensation stirring in your spine begins to shoot up towards your head, you cry out -- and the Veteran interrupts you, with a heady roar, as he clutches your hips and hilts himself to ride out his climax. The Duelist screeches, clutching at you as you're jerked up, and her back arches to reach you. Under the bandages, her face contorts magnificently, and that final rush of the truly novel sends the burning pleasure straight into your brain and your cock. The sky opens above you. Sunlight blazes down. The vines on the towers around you burst into brilliant green-gold bloom.

You all collapse together onto the pillows. The Duelist props herself up as you slide out of her, and you take in the spots of blood and other, darker fluid seeping through her bandages, both from the wounds you explored and from others she must have jostled and scraped. Still, her expression is half-lidded and dreamy, and she plants a kiss on your forehead before she rolls away. The Veteran has removed himself from you, but he lingers next to you, arm slung over your waist. His body is cool, but you imagine you can feel a faint heat from the center of his chest, where his heart must still intermittently beat.

You close your eyes and relax into the embrace of your new lover, still breathing in his grave-scent and relaxing against the crisp roughness of his bandages. A few feet away, your other new lover has begun to snore, even as her lifeblood stains the white pillows. You may have to clean up the honey-den once you awaken back in the Tomb-Colonies -- but isn't that really a small price to pay?


End file.
